Commentary Driving could be dangerous.

[Kimosabe]

Is it possible and necessary to verbalise all relevant experienced content while driving and if so, why?

Imagine how difficult it can be sometimes to write exactly what you mean, when responding to a forum posting which you feel very animated, excited, annoyed etc about? Can you say exactly what you are experiencing while also driving?

The IAM say it's optional to give a commentary while driving but within both IAM and RoSPA it's sometimes considered a good way to earn "brownie points". I would like to know what the accepted basis for requiring a commentary drive are and how examiners relate to them.

I have often heard it said that giving a commentary helps the examiner to appreciate what the driver is seeing; to show that the driver "is thinking". I can think of several good reasons for why it doesn't and I think it's similar, in psychological terms, to answering a mobile phone. It's possible to refer backwards to an event but how realistic is it to refer forwards to something which has not yet happened. I say this because I caught myself second guessing traffic on the M25 yesterday and the results were about 60/40 in my favour.

I have also seen videos of people saying one thing before doing another when giving a commentary drive. Like "I will now pass this parked car at a safe speed and at a safe distance from it", while doing anything but. As a practising Hypnotherapist, I'm all too aware of how to give people suggestions and of how language can shape or change experience. So I have my theories about commentary driving and how it affects experience and behaviour and I would like to know what other people think about it.

[Gareth]

Some interesting questions.

The comments near the end reminded me of something StressedDave mentioned one time when we were in a car together. Something about if the driver (verbally or mentally) calls out distant hazards it is somewhat harder to completely ignore them, as if the process of mentioning them somehow makes them more real to the driver.

I reckon the best police drivers, (and maybe some others), will have a fair degree of appreciation about whether the driver spots hazards based on what steps they take on approach, so I'm not convinced commentaries are of much benefit to examiners except in rare situations, (although I'm finding it difficult to say what they might be).

I can see that practising commentary can have benefits for the driver in that the mind might be more focused on the task in hand, and similarly it can be used if the driver is tired to restore focus. I can also see that when a person is learning to prioritise hazards and potential hazards speaking them out loud may help that process, and it's clear how it might be of benefit to a volunteer observer during that process.

[Kevin]

A very interesting question. I’ve been trying to improve my commentary during my IAM Masters training as I’ve always considered it to be one of the weakest elements of my ‘advanced driving’.

There are a couple reasons why I consider it to be one of the weakest elements of my driving:

• Saying something different from what I’m actually seeing, for example, saying bend to the right, when it’s actually a bend to the left! I don’t think I’m the only one to make such mistakes. I recently had a demonstration drive from an ADI who is also a RoADAR tutor and holder of the RoSPA diploma in advanced driving instruction and he said, ‘mirror, clear’, when there was a car following us. I asked him why he’d said that and he replied that he’d gone on ‘automatic’.

• Suffering a drop in performance (mainly a slight drop in speed) in my driving. This, as far as I can tell, is no longer an issue, but it was during the initial attempts to provide a commentary. Practice has greatly helped in this regard.

On the plus side, a commentary forces me to look well ahead and scan for hazards and clues to what’s happening. By looking well ahead, including cross views, my commentary improves as I have more time to comment on things, rather than trying to blurt out everything just before I reach it. Having said that, I'm not sure if it's the commentary that's forcing me to look further ahead or the fact that if I don't mention something as soon as I can see it (or at least at the same time that my Masters mentor sees it), my mentor is going to have a little moan at me .

When I’m not under instruction or test, I try to do a commentary in my head rather than speaking aloud and I find that easier, but it’s probably not good to practice like that as I’ve obviously got to speak when I take the test.

I think it’s different from using a mobile phone as the conversation is not likely to be about what you’re doing, driving, but something completely unrelated. I’ve read that the problem with mobile phone use comes when the driver attempt to visualise something which then has the effect of taking the brains visual processing ability away from the task of driving. A commentary does exactly the opposite as it forces the driver to concentrate on the task of driving.

[Kimosabe]

Don't suppose anyone could say I'm not thinking about my driving.

[The Thinker]

If you have practiced commentary (so are reasonably fluent) and don't have time to mention all the important hazards you may be driving too fast.

Also you are no second guessing what is going to happen. You should be spotting the possibility of conflict and planning to avoid it in all circumstances. Part of the commentary should be what I am doing about what I see to avoid adverse events and also spotting times where good progress is being made.

If you are guessing what people are going to do, commentary will help and observer/examiner identify this issue.

[JamesAllport]

Interesting thread. A couple of thoughts:

I think the fact that we inherited commentary from police driving schools is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because, used wisely as a self-development tool, commentary does prompt one to lift one's vision and look further ahead and my experience over almost 20 years as an observer is that a muddled commentary does very often highlight a muddle or at least a lack of decisiveness in the driving plan, and it's good to surface that. But as civilians we do ourselves no favours if we copy some of the more "frantic" styles of police commentary, packed full of stock phrases and paragraphs recited verbatim from Roadcraft.

I can deliver a commentary in that style, but it doesn't help my driving. The risk of that style of commentary is that it becomes an end in itself and, as others have said, becomes rather disconnected from what's actually happening. I remember giving such a "full" commentary to John Lyon when I was training for HPC entry with him. After a few minutes he sighed slightly wistfully and said, "Ah, James, if only your driving was as good as your commentary says it is we'd be getting somewhere."

If I think about the people whose commentary I really admire, the characteristic they share is that their commentary is quite spare. They use a few words well and what they say consistently prioritises the most important issue in view at the time, which reflects the fact that they both have very highly developed planning skills. They are not trying to impress me with their commentary. In fact they're not trying to impress me at all, because their driving is markedly free of ego. Stefan Einz posted some commentary video on this forum which I can't currently find by searching for it, but that exemplifies the style that I admire and think works well.

Kimosabe's hint about commentary being a tool for suggestion is interesting. I use it myself that way sometimes. One of my long-standing issues is that if I turn from a major road to a minor I'll find my driving drops in quality, pace and "sparkle" for a bit, I'm slow to acclimatise to the new road. So I've borrowed a trick from a police driver friend and now say to myself out loud as I turn into the new road "New road, vision up..." as a reminder to raise my vision and really look at the new scene in front of me.

When all's said and done, commentary is a slave not a master. Some will find it useful, some won't. The danger of distraction and becoming overly absorbed in it is very real. Police officers, of course, sometimes have to give evidential driving commentary during a pursuit and it's not insignificant that in most forces, the standard is now that if the pursuing car contains two officers, the driver drives - and concentrates on that - and the co-driver gives the commentary. Similarly, in the driver training program for the London Air Ambulance rapid response cars (which are driven by an ambulance paramedic but might have to travel right across London to reach a call when the helicopter can't fly) the standard is that all the passenger does is to give route directions. Silence is maintained as far as possible to allow the driver to concentrate. Nor, generally, is the driver allowed to know the nature of the call they're driving to, so as not to add pressure to them.

James

[Kimosabe]

We use different areas of our brain and different functions when visualising something (mobile phone chat) than when we hear (radio) or speak (commentary). So you are spot on whe you say that when we say what we see, we effectively distance or 'dissociate' ourselves from reality while we are doing it and that this must then impede our ability. It's a bit like running a film of what is happening instead of being a part of it. How that affects driving differs between people; it's a bit like someone who can read and play sheet music on a piano. They genrally aren't able to maintain an abstract conversation at the same time as playing, so why should driving be any different?.

So getting used to stating distant hazards out loud is no bad thing but this should never override the most important thing, which is driving. I don't fully understand why lengthy running commentary is a part of any driving syllabus, as its far better to state short relevant facts or thoughts than it is to talk continually. (Says he writing this essay)

When we are driving a car, we are doing so while relying on subconscious processes ie we know where and how our feet and hands operate and when, without having to verbally name our actions before or while doing so. We learned to do this until it became second nature, or a subconscious act. Ask any ADI. The 'danger' lies in turning a subconscious process into a conscious process. This is when the operating software needs more RAM than normal and while its figuring out how to get more RAM, the operation becomes lumpy, disjointed and irregular. If as a result of this you slow down, that's better than speeding up in most cases but still not ideal. That we can already drive is to our advantage but talking about what you're doing while not being able to instantly stop is not good.

So when you say something you don't see eg. "I'm turning right" when turning left, it's because you're visualising (daydreaming) at that point. You are on 'auto'. That is no good thing in some ways, when driving towards a bend in which you're going to fall back on your instinctive and learned behaviour anyway, because you are distracted and cannot instantly stop, rewind and start again. You'll probably make the turn but would have done so without the added interruption, so best to not distract yourself.

In effect all that has happened, is that someone able to give a commentary has learned how to, so it's really not a matter of expertise in driving and more about that they have learned how to do talk fluently and drive at the same time. At least what they're talking about is relevant though. For how long they could maintain this is another matter. That's why it's so important to take regular hourly breaks of enough time to get out of the frame of 'automatic' driving when driving for longer than a couple of hours; it's mentally exhausting and prone to longer periods of daydreaming.

Don't get me wrong here, I think it's a great technique for helping to correct bad habits and to learn better ones but to do this while driving (a simulator would be the solution) is not so great. I notice my speed dropping when someone is talking to me when I'm driving, so I make sure that the loudest thing in my car is the engine and road noise..... Unless pink floyd, led zep or some Manilow comes on the radio, then you had really better watch out!!

[daz6215]

Instructional commentary is a useful tool too!

[fungus]

When I did my observer training with a retired Dorset Police Class 1, I had to give an instructional commentary for 20 minutes. He admitted that at anything over 40mph this is not easy, but personally I find that commentary does focus the mind on the task at hand, namely driving, so it's not like having a conversation with a passenger, or talking on the mobile phone, which takes the mind off the driving task.

With pupils who are showing poor observation I often drive myself and get them to call out road signs, hazards etc. from the front passenger seat. I find that by doing this they start taking more notice of what is happening around them.

[Hiijinx]

I've always found commentary a good way to keep your mind focused on the road ahead, spotting hazards much earlier where as listening to a passenger is often detrimental to perception unless on the subject of the drive.

Hardest thing is giving a commentry with a passenger beside you and not looking like a pillack

[Kimosabe]

Okay I'll admit that I have been jabbering away to myself in the car for weeks with this commentary lark in mind. I try to keep the self-talk relevant but it's often quite humorous or else verging on full blown Tourette's.

There, I said it!

Ps. Talking to yourself is different to chatting to someone else, unless they are imaginary.

Going for a little lie down now....

[Ralge]

I recognise the issues with commentary mentioned above in the drivers I sit with but, like anything else, with guidance and practice a driving commentary can become the norm and effortless.
So I'm with Chris Gilbert ("Ultimate Driving Craft" DVD) when he suggests that even a rudimentary bullet-point commentary would prevent many, many crashes on the road that can be put down to momentary inattention or "looking but not seeing" (SMIDSY).
So, ask yourself what you can and can't see by way of hazards (fixed, moving, road weather and time of day/year) and what you might reasonably expect to happen. Have a plan to deal with this but be prepared to change it and target never being surprised.
Use commentary to put yourself,importantly, in a state of Reflective Competence knowing that you will never attain perfection but that this RC state of critical self-awareness is achievable through commentary.
Seen in this light, without getting into the overload of a 2000-word per minute (exaggeration, I know) Police-style commentary, I can't think of it as remotely dangerous.

[Kimosabe]

@ ralge

As long as the commentary doesn't override what is really going on or prevent an instant plan B.

While i realise that there is a happy medium to be reached, I meet people who talk themselves (or who have accepted what they have been told without question) into all manner of unproductive situations. Sometimes they know they're doing it but not how to change, sometimes they know how to change but not what to change. Much of this centres on self-talk and that is what I guess I had in mind when asking the question about commentary driving not necessarily reflecting what is going on.

Interesting to discuss all the same.

[7db]

In general there are dozens of things that you can see at any one time, although only one that you are actively managing. Commentary is dire when it mentions everything and not just the thing that is being managed: there's just way too much to mention, and it's horrible to listen to (and horribler to give).

If you need a filter, consider the following: What is going to kill us next? What are we doing about it?

My view is that commentary is used for two purposes:-
-- to instruct (as driver) -- to guide a co-driver's eyes to the place where you want them to go and help them understand what is going on. This can also reassure a nervous passenger. There's little point giving it to an instructor/examiner as they can usually tell what you're looking at if they are any good.

-- to control (as co-driver) -- it knocks 20mph off an enthusiastic drive the first time you ask your driver for a commentary and can make the whole thing a lot more comfortable.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I've posted in another thread some YouTube clips of Japanese Shinkansen drivers. They are trained not only to verbalise hazards (in their case signals) but to point at them. This is intended to reinforce the act of seeing the signal and ensure the correct reaction. The train dispatchers on the platforms do something similar. As they check up and down the train for hazards (people) they point in both directions, before blowing their whistle or waving their "clear to go" baton.